CKE Press Release

CARPINTERIA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--CKE Restaurants Holdings, Inc., parent company of Hardee’s®
and Carl’s Jr.®, loves bacon. To express that affection, the
brands created the new Super Bacon Cheeseburger (featuring six slices of
delicious bacon) and partnered with the crispy meat’s biggest fans,
Harley Morenstein and Muscles Glasses, stars of YouTube’s “Epic Meal
Time,” in a new Super Bacon Cheeseburger commercial premiering today.
The new spot is the latest in the brands’ Hunger campaign.

“Epic
Meal Time” is an extremely popular YouTube-based cooking show with
more than five million subscribers and half a billion video views,
making it the top online cooking show and surpassing the viewership of
many popular broadcast TV cooking shows. During each segment, the hosts
create “epic” takes on classic meal items, and bacon is a frequent and
prominent ingredient.

The Super Bacon Cheeseburger features a charbroiled beef patty, American
cheese, mayonnaise, tomato, onion, lettuce and a super serving of bacon,
with six full bacon strips woven together into a crispy bacon nest. The
Super Bacon Cheeseburger can also be ordered “epic,” adding an extra
bacon nest and cranking the total bacon count up to twelve strips.
Prices start at $3.99 for the original version and may vary by location.

“The Super Bacon Cheeseburger is a truly epic creation that celebrates
all that is glorious about bacon,” said Brad Haley, chief marketing
officer of CKE Restaurants. “Who better to help us advertise it than the
stars of Epic Meal Time, Harley and Muscles Glasses, whose love for
bacon is so extreme that it, at times, borders on inappropriate? Our
target audience of young, hungry guys spends a lot of time watching
videos on YouTube, and the Epic Meal Time channel is a favorite. In the
new spot, fans of Epic Meal Time will even recognize Muscles Glasses’
trademark t-shirt with ‘Bacon Strips &’ repeated several times on the
front. The spot does a perfect job getting across our message that the
Super Bacon Cheeseburger has a lot of bacon on it or, as the ad states,
‘bacon, bacon, bacon, bacon, bacon, bacon.’”

The new ad marks the first time the “Epic Meal Time” stars have appeared
in a commercial for broadcast TV. Titled “Bacon to the Sixth Power,” the
new spot – featuring the YouTube stars, techno beats and, of course,
lots of bacon – was created by Los Angeles- and Amsterdam-based creative
agency 72andSunny.
It can be viewed on the Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s YouTube channels (www.youtube.com/carlsjr and www.youtube.com/hardees)
and will also begin airing on television today. Behind the scenes
footage will be released later this week.

CKE Restaurants Holdings, Inc. is a privately held company headquartered
in Carpinteria, Calif. As of the end of fiscal 2013, the company,
through its subsidiaries, had a total of 3,318 franchised or
company-operated restaurants in 42 states and 28 foreign countries and
U.S. territories worldwide, including 1,369 Carl’s Jr.® restaurants
and 1,944 Hardee’s® restaurants. For more information about
CKE Restaurants Holdings, please visit www.ckr.com or
its brand sites at www.carlsjr.com and
www.hardees.com.